


Letting Go

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Identity Issues, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is losing Sammy and himself</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo, with the prompt "Loss of Identity"

"But I want to go to college!" Sammy vents, stomping around the motel room.

Dean watches him with hooded eyes, unsure how to respond. Dad had stormed away from the fight to go hunt something, with strict orders that they boys were not to open the door for anyone. It's the same order he's given them hundreds of times in Dean's memory, but this time there was another message that went unspoken. It was almost as if he expected to come back and find Sammy already gone.

"I want to learn about more than this monster stuff! I want a life!" Sam shouted.

Dean frowned at that. Because, really, they did have a life. It certainly wasn't the life he would have chosen as a six year old, but now it was what he knew, and he was good at it, and he was relatively happy with this life.

He knew better than to protest when Sammy was on a rampage, however, as the younger boy wouldn't hear anything said against his case.

In a way, Dean understood where Sammy was coming from. Dean had been there that night; he had seen the flames and the pain on his father's face. He had known a life before monsters, and it wasn't all that great.

But Sammy didn't know. Sammy had only ever known hunts and chases and guns and things that haunted the darkness. He still saw the real world as a far off fantasy land in which everything would be perfect and all his troubles with Dad would melt away into the sunshine.

Dean knew better, but Sammy still believed in the good side. And damn it! Dean wanted him to keep believing! He didn't want his baby brother to turn into the bitter man he himself was becoming. But if it was a choice between the fantasy and survival, he'd taking living any day of the week. And Sammy should too!

So yeah, he understood where Sammy was coming from, why he wanted to get away. Why he wanted to go to some prep college and meet a nice girl and settle down and have some kids and a dog and a picket fence. But Dean had pulled too many guys out from behind those picket fences and had to shield them from the dangers of the night, and he didn't want Sammy to ever become that kind of oblivious, defenseless shmuck.

"It just isn't fair!" Sammy wailed.

"Yeah, well life isn't fair!" Dean spat back at him.

Both boys froze, and Sammy's wide eyes met Dean's equally shocked ones. That was one of the things that Dad had yelled before leaving the motel room, and now it had just flown out of Dean's mouth in a perfect imitation.

Dean's known it for a little while now, but he hasn't wanted to acknowledge it. He's becoming a little version of John, and he knows it, but he can't do anything about it. And some moments he doesn't want to.

Sam can tell, though, and at that moment he's looking at Dean like he's losing the most important thing in his life. And Dean can only look back at him with the same expression.

Because he is. He's becoming John. Slowly, but it's happening. He's focused his life on _protect Sammy_ , just like John wanted him to. And if Sammy left, if Sammy didn't need protecting, then what would he do? Who would he be? Just John's little shadow.

Dean saw the hurt and understanding flash across Sammy's eyes, and before his brother could say anything pathetic that might make him feel better, Dean turned on his heels. _Protect Sammy_ , even if that meant letting him go. "Just go," he spat, hiding his face. Hiding how much this hurt him too. "We'll be better off without you slowing us down anyways."

With that he stormed out of the motel room, ignoring John's rules for the first time in years. Honestly, he didn't care about John's reaction right now. He was losing Sammy to that suburban dream, and there was nothing he could do but let him go.


End file.
